Peace For The Ghosts
by Rainey Lennyn
Summary: Two years post-Chosen, the lives of Buffy and her friends are drastically different. When the nightmares and eerie messages start, they will discover that something is disturbing the grounds of Sunnydale. Please R&R!


_For all the sad words of tongue or pen_

The saddest of these: what might have been

- John Greenleaf Whittier

It was two years to the day and the moon shone knowingly. It hung in the velvety twilight, a round, scarred orb. It illuminated down to the earth in shimmery beams, sad and diaphanous like grief. Drenched in the moon's tears, the ocean lapped against the shore steadily like a heartbeat. _Thrum, thrum_. It crashed to meet the expanse of the bronze sand in the kiss it had performed since the beginning of time. Nature reverberated with the effects of those emotions- sorrow, love.

The lone figure on the beach, she felt it too. Pushing deep breaths from her chest, she was remembering. Her eyes fell to a close, the world cloaked in darkness, images burnt upon the back of her eyelids. The memories spun white-hot through her small body and her palm tingled into phantom feelings. She felt his touch again.

During the day she was alive, alive in a way that had been denied her for so many years. She worked at a job she didn't despise and she spent weekends at home that weren't interrupted by apocalypses. She slept, for the most part, without nightmares and she was even slowly learning to cook. Most of all, she smiled and she laughed. Buffy Summers lived.

But tonight, on the anniversary, she felt the familiar hollow split open inside her and threaten to swallow her up. It was a canyon that only one person had ever been able to fill- someone who had the identical hole in his heart. She missed him desperately. She missed the way he could always drive her to the extremes, how they used to dance around that fine line of hatred and love. Their journey together had been a vicious, consuming cycle that had awakened her the way else could.

He had tormented her, left her with a vessel full of scars, loved her devotedly. He died for her. On the day that Sunnydale had fallen into the earth, her lover had been reduced to a pile of ashes. Her Spike- her fiercely passionate, drunken poet of a vampire. Her William- her redeemed champion that had given her his heart, his soul, his everything. Some days she wasn't sure how she lived without him.

Other days she discovered that she went through her whole day with a grin and happy thoughts- and without thinking of him. A single tear slid from her tightly squeezed eyes, slid down her cheek and splattered on her chest. Part of her wanted to scream out his name, to call to him wherever he was, to explain to him how she needed him, to convince herself she wasn't betraying him by moving on. She held it in though, capturing his name in her heart like something precious about to fly away.

She rarely spoke of Spike, occasionally to Faith who listened with a detached if not unsympathetic ear and seldom to anyone else. Not even Dawn who had mourned in her own sulky way today. She kept Spike and his memory locked within herself, that comforting place she could retreat to when her new life got too real, the place where things were like they used to be. Oddly enough when she had lived through those days, all she had wished for was change. 

Now she just wished Spike was around to see her, to love the Buffy he had always seen but she had failed to. She opened her eyes and allowed the cascade of lonely tears pour down her chilled cheeks. For an instant, a split-second, Buffy felt a breeze against her face as if the wind had stroked a finger along her cheek in comfort. It started her for a moment, then she sighed, upturning her face to the full moon.

It would mourn for Spike all night too- just as she would. Only the moon was large and pale-colored, obvious in its heartache while Buffy would hide it away inwardly, quietly. She would love him tonight secretly as their love had always been. Their beautiful, clandestine secret affair. 

She sighed and glanced at her watch. Nearing nine o'clock, all those at home would begin to worry especially Dawnie. She had said she was just stopping at the store for ice cream, although she doubted anyone had believed her. She stole one last glance at the lonely moon and the roaring ocean and smiled. Her lips curved in bittersweet anguish, she whispered to the night,

"I love you, William."

~*~*~*~*~

Keys jangling loudly, grocery bag shoved in the crook of her arm, Buffy pushed open the door to the two bedroom apartment she rented. A sad smile stretched over her face as she entered, greeted by the smell of Dawn's cookies and the music of happy conversation. Sure, the furniture was a bit worn and the carpet was faded but it was beginning to feel like home. Carefully she set the bag holding the melting ice cream to the floor and looked quickly in the mirror. There was no disguising the residue of tears on her face- her bloodshot eyes, her tightly drawn mouth, her slightly reddened nose. Sighing she tried to arrange her wind-tossed hair to look respectable and hoped everyone could ignore it. She didn't need their pity tonight.

"Buffy?" Dawn's voice was heard, promptly followed by her slim teenage body skidding around the corner. At first glance she knew where her sister had been and she seemed to middle around what to say. She finally grinned her broad, candy grin and asked,

"So you remembered the ice cream, right?"

Even in the thrall of her grief, Buffy couldn't help but smile back. Dawn was pure sunlight, all gold and glitter, her good nature all encompassing. Effervescence ensconced in a tall body with a curtain of gorgeous hair and twinkling eyes. The move had been good for her. She had entered school with a clean slate, was immediately popular and now Buffy was constantly dealing with the presence of excitable teenage girls. She had the carefree life she had always deserved, that Buffy couldn't even imagine ever having. 

Dawn was the lucky one now. Buffy tossed her the bag that was now dripping considerably with a laugh.

"There ya go. You might wanna throw it in the freezer first."

Her disgusted expression looking quite laughable, Dawn pulled a vanilla-coated hand from the bag. She complained,

"Jeez, Buff, what'd you do? Go to San Francisco for ice cream? You do know there's a gas station down the block, right?"

Hanging up her coat, Buffy deftly avoided the question by switching the topic to Dawn- one of the teenager's favorite conversation prices. She asked maternally,

"Did you finish your homework? I don't want Casey and Monica over if you haven't done that Civil War essay."

"Please," Dawn snorted, evidently surprised her older sister had to ask. "Not only did I finish that inane report, I also completed that Sumerian Giles emailed over." She giggled, "Can you believe he's finally learned how to maneuver the internet?"

"Well I wouldn't call him Bill Gates just yet. Willow's just had a good effect on him." Mentioning Willow sent a flash of loneliness down Buffy's spine. She missed her best friend more and more each day especially now that the phone calls were getting fewer. She was doing spectacular in England with Giles and the potentials; it seemed as if she was finally finding her place. Most of all finding peace after the loss of Tara. Buffy was proud of her. She had found a way to take her grief and use it into making greater good, helping build up a stronger Council. But sometimes she felt selfish because all she wanted was her best friend back- the nerdy, compassionate girl that had been lost to drugs and sorrow.

"Hello, earth to Buffy. Can you read me, Buffy?"

Dawn stared at her with a finely arched eyebrow and just a hint of worry. Buffy laughed her reverie off and pushed the sister that towered over her now towards the kitchen.

"Hey come on, get that ice cream frozen before our floor is 31 flavors. Say, is Faith here?"

"Is Faith ever here on the weekends?" Dawn rolled her eyes as they made their way into the tiny but spotless kitchen. "She said she found a new bar where T'arog demons were hanging out. I think she just wanted an excuse to get sloshed. Did she even pay her part of the rent this month?"

"Dawnie, don't start on Faith," Buffy clucked her tongue in a gesture that reminded her scarily of their mother. "She's doing the best she can right now. And yes, she did pay. The bouncer job at the new club is paying off for her. She's actually held this job for a couple weeks. Don't knock her."

"I wouldn't if her track record proved she could hold one for at least a month. Come on, Buffy, she takes my clothes."

Throwing the dilapidated carton into their ugly sea foam green freezer, Buffy laughed and took a seat on one of their bar stools.

"Oh so that's what this is really about. Why don't you just ask her to stop?"

"Buffy," the impatience in Dawn's voice was palpable. "Have you ever just _asked_ Faith to do anything? She'd kick my ass. You know what a brute she is."

"Oh please, Faith is a little more civilized than that. Besides she knows if she touched you, I'd be the one doing the ass-kicking." She said it with a teasing smile but she inwardly was shaking her head. Faith was her other half, her wild child with raven hair and a sailor's mouth. She could never be forced into a box, could never be deciphered. Waving her hand dismissively, Buffy asked, 

"So who's all here? I heard some pretty uproarious laughter when I came home."

"Oh it was just me and Xander. He's fixing the shelves in the bathroom right now."

"Oh is he?" Buffy asked uninterestedly. "Good. One fell when I was in the shower this morning, scared the bejesus out of me. So tell me, Dawnie, what's on the agenda for tonight? Movie night?"

Dawn's deep blue eyes gazed intently into hers, roving across her hard-sculpted face. Buffy was distraught to see tears fill up her sister's eyes to the brim and threaten to spill out. Dawn whispered,

"Buffy, you don't have to pretend around me. I know what today is. We can't act like it doesn't exist. Please don't shut down. It's okay to grieve today."

Buffy felt her throat go tight and fuzzy and she tried to swallow the lump that was forming. She looked at Dawn with slightly wild eyes and desperately wanted to escape talking about this. Almost as a saving grace, Xander Harris bumbled into the room, his tool belt connecting solidly with the dinner table. He winced, then grinned widely at two of his favorite ladies. He knew them both so well that it took one glance from each to see the pain, the glimmer or liquid in their eyes. He carefully chose to ignore it.

"So hey where's that ice cream? Buff, don't tell me you forgot. Jeez, what is with the Slayers of today? Can't even remember a simple dairy product- I'm disgusted."

Buffy laughed in spite of herself, breaking the tension between her and Dawn. 

"What is it with you people? Why do you both think my brain's turned to mush?"

As Dawn bounded like an overgrown puppy to the freezer, Buffy thanked Xander with a quick, gracious squeeze on the arm and a big-eyed sincere nod. They have been sleeping together for six months.


End file.
